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Unconscious Decision Making

Earlier I posted about decision making. Our everyday choices shape so much of life. I was wondering whether I made decisions unconsciously. Whether or not, many of my decisions were made unconsciously.

More recently, scientists have been finding evidences that the unconscious is not just relevant, but that it is smart. The conscious mind can consider only a few facts at a time. The unconscious appears to do a better job of weighing the factors and arriving at a sound conclusion. Under some circumstances we make better decisions by avoiding conscious deliberation altogether.

The Science article looked at what the researchers described as the ''deliberation-without-attention effect" (The study largely focused on snap judgments). This was described as the power of the unconscious mind to process information and to mull through possibilities without the person being aware of it. The research spark a lot more work in the area. Like any great paper, it raises more questions than it answers.

We may have made unconscious decisions but that decision has already been done before we were made to decide. We think of things and situations way ahead and have made decisions before we are made to decide. We desire it. Then, when the time comes to decide, we decide by how we feel about it. Feeling is outright, we go with what feels right. The things or situations that happen may not be exactly the same with what we have thought of beforehand, but the pattern may be the same. We decide by association, association of data we already had. Personally, it’s not really unconscious.